Surgery for a patient can be painful and traumatic, particularly in the affected area of the patient's body. To accomplish spinal fixation, a necessary procedure often involves forming a hole in a pedicle wall of a vertebra in a patient's spine and inserting a spinal pedicle screw into the hole. Pedicle screws are advantageous in that they are strong and provide stability, however, care must be taken to avoid nerve impingement during formation of the holes and the placement of pedicle screws in the spine. Measures taken to simultaneously monitor and locate any neural elements can facilitate hole formation and screw insertion.
Locating defects such as openings in bone tissue that expose nerves can be difficult. Some procedures involve monitoring muscle reactions to electrical stimulation to locate nerves in an area of bone tissue. If a nerve is not located and a screw contacts an exposed nerve, the screw can impinge on the nerve or become too close to the nerve root causing pain and other implications for the patient. Locating neural elements during the hole formation and screw insertion processes can facilitate such surgical procedures.
There remains a need for instruments and methods that can be employed for locating neural elements during formation of a hole in the pedicle wall and/or insertion of a screw therein. The present invention is directed to meeting these needs, among others.